


Scion

by KuriQuinn



Series: Karma [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Companion Piece, Drama, Family, Family Drama, Gen, Original Character Death(s), Samsāra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 08:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12055623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuriQuinn/pseuds/KuriQuinn
Summary: “Your mother…loved you,” he tells her, hesitating on the rarely used word as he gazes deep into her eyes. “You and your brothers and your sisters. And this baby. More than her own life, she valued her children. If I could go back and change…” He clenches his eyes here, pain nakedly evident in his features. He takes a moment to get control of himself and then pulls way. “But I can’t. We must move forward.”





	Scion

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta Reader:** Not beta-read; check back at a later date for edits
> 
> **Disclaimer:** This story utilizes characters, situations and premises that are copyright Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, Shonen Jump and Viz Media. No infringement on their respective copyrights pertaining to episodes, novelizations, comics or short stories is intended by the author in any way, shape or form. This fan oriented story is written solely for the author’s own amusement and the entertainment of the readers. It is not for profit. Any resemblance to real organizations, institutions, products or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All fiction, plot and Original Characters with the exception of those introduced in the books, manga, video games, novelizations and anime, are the sole creation of KuriQuinn and using them without permission is considered rude, in bad-taste and will reflect seriously on your credibility as a writer. You will be squished by a Susanoo wielding demi god if you are found plagiarizing.

インドラの子供たち

One day, Father suddenly freezes in the middle of morning lessons, turning paler than ten-year-old Nirami has ever seen him.

“ _Shachi_ ,” he breathes, his eyes going unfocussed.

Nirami and her next younger siblings, Rishaba and Ributi, stop what they are doing at the sound of a name that has been forbidden to be spoken for months now. Little Ributi, not even five years old when they lost Mother, cranes her neck around exchitedly, chirping, “Where’s Mama, Papa? Where’s Mama?”

Over on the engawa where their nurse is minding them, the twins hear her and start to look around as well, becoming frantic when they can’t find her. Even little, toddling Midumi begins to fuss in the nurse’s arms.

“Stop that,” Rishaba orders, shoving his little sister.

“Ow!”

“You’re making them upset. You already know Mother is dead.”

“Not dead.” Everyone stares up at Father, who gazes upon them like he momentarily forgot they were there. “I sense her chakra. After such a long time, it can only mean one thing: she was taken and hidden from us.” His expression darkens. “I will get her back.”

He leaves them without another word.

Not another is needed, however, because when Father says he will do something, he always does.

“I wish I could go with him,” Rishaba mutters. “I’d kill the bastard who took her.”

At eight years old, he is a scrawny waif, whose eyes burn with anger.

For three days they wait together with their minders, an heavy and expectant tension hanging over them. When Nirami can endure it no longer, she slips out to the cave on the edge of the settlement.

It’s dark and cooler than she likes in there, but she simply wraps her cloak tighter around her and lights the lamps within. A well-worn piece of wood is propped against the wall, and she busies herself with remixing colours from ochre, charcoal and animal fat. Using her fingers, she draws broad stylised figures on the damp stone.

Nirami likes to paint; it calms her.

She missed it in the cold winter and throughout the damp spring, when it was impossible to come to this place. It’s the only spot in the new settlement where she can come and be alone, and paint her pictures without having to worry about younger siblings messing it up.

It’s not like home, though. There, even when it was cold, Mother would make a roaring fire, and there was always fresh fruit and vegetables, and soft robes and clean vellum and coloured inks to play with.

Father always said painting was a waste of time that could be spent improving ninjutsu, but whenever he returned from a journey he always brought her new blank scrolls and a new bottle of ink.

“For your lessons,” he would always say, but they both knew she wouldn’t use the precious gifts on her studies. There was always something warm in his usually reserved features when she thanked him.

But Father hasn’t looked that way in months; not since Mother as killed in an ambush outside their village.

_Not killed_ , Nirami reminds herself, heart fluttering and leaping anxiously. _Taken. Father said she was taken and hidden, but now he can sense her chakra and he’s going to bring her back._

She repeats that story to herself, a mantra that has been beating a rhythm in her brain since Father made his startling discovery.

She is anxious, and hasn’t felt like this since the days right after they lost Mother.

_He’ll bring her back and then we can go home and it will be like it was before._

Nirami hugs herself, swallowing the ever-present lump in her throat that’s been there since that horrible day when Mother died. When they _thought_ she died.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Mother was gone, they were to lose their home, too. Father barely waited for the ashes to cool in the forest surrounding their village, before he gathered Nirami and her siblings together, along with a handful of his most loyal vassals, they left.

He said he needed to find somewhere to keep them safe while he was away. If someone was brave and foolish enough to attack his village and kill his wife, he would not take the same risk with the children. They needed to be safe…and he needed to find out who was responsible for the loss of Mother.

They wandered for months, almost up until the first snows of winter, and then they only stopped because the twins and Midumi grew ill. It’s the first time Nirami or any of her siblings remembers such illness, because Mother always staved off fevers and chills. None of the vassals Father brought with him had her talent for healing.

Nirami knew a little, but she never paid much attention to Mother’s lessons; she was always too eager to join Father and his older students. She never regretted it before that winter.

Between herself and her father, they managed to nurse the younger ones back to health, andb y then it was too cold to go anywhere else. They were forced to stay the inter in this remote little island off the mainland.

Father didn’t seem to mind it, but then, he never seems bothered by anything or anyone. Even through the winter months, there was still training and chore and lessons, and Father looking worried though he would never say he was. But Nirami recognised the look; she had seen it twice before. Once, when she was very little and Mother was caught in a sudden, violent hailstorm while out gathering herbs, and the other time when she was giving birth to the twins and Old Dewadasi thought she would die.

“Nira! Nira!”

Rishaba’s voice echoes from the mouth of the cave, breathless and cheeks flushed.

“What is it?”

“Father…Father is back!” her brother tells her, trying to sound decorous even as he tries to catch his breath. “The sentries spotted him approaching the camp.”

Nirami drops her paints. “Did they say if Mother was with him?”

“No. But they said he’s covered in a big cloak, carrying something. Maybe Mother was hurt and he’s carrying her back?”

“Then why wouldn’t he use _Shushin_ to get her here?” Nirami wants to know, even as she follows Rishaba from her sanctuary. Her heart beats a steady tattoo against her throat, a horrible suspicion forming.

What is, somehow, Father failed to return with Mother? What if whoever was hiding her still has her, and has found a way to keep her from Father? What if he’s only return to…to…

_To what? Figure out how to get her back?_

She and her siblings gather at the entrance of the settlement, having to elbow for space from Father’s disciples. When he reaches them, they can’t even greet him for the barrage of questions the men throw his way. He ignore all of them, striding in and heading for the main house.

The nurses grab hold of the children, stopping them from running after him, but Nirami has always been the best at evasion. She escapes their grasp and hurries after her father, following him into torch-lit house.

“Father?” she asks, tentative, following him into his sleeping quarters. Father stands in the shadows, close to a roaring fire in the grate and hunched over.

“Fetch milk and clean linens,” he tells her in lieu of a greeting. “Quickly.”

She knows better than to argue, and races to the other room to get the supplies he has requests. Upon re-entering the room, she sees him still sitting there, travel cloak still draped over his shoulders. Now, though, he is murmuring softly.

Upon noticing her, he turns and motions her closer. Wary, she approaches, looking over his shoulder, and freezes at the sight.

Protectively cradled in her father’s arm, mouth open in a soundless, feeble cry, is a baby.

“F…Father?”

“Nirami, this is your brother,” he tells her, voice soft. “Uchiwa.”

She repeats the strange name on her tongue, trying to digest this information while staring at the infant with wide eyes. He is smaller than she has ever seen a baby, and unhealthy-looking—she can see his veins, spider web thin beneath delicate skin. Most surprising, however, are his features.

His pallor is not entirely due to his small side, but because he takes after Father. From the shape of his tiny nose to the dark brown hair curled upon his tiny head. Black eyes stare up at her in fear and discomfort, and she gasps.

“Why does he have black eyes?” she whispers. “Babies don’t have black eyes.”

“I don’t know,” Father says, his voice still gentle as he wraps the blankets more securely around the baby.

Nirami startles at this—because Father _always_ has the answers—and she suddenly allows herself to think on the horrible implication that has been brewing since his return.

“Father…where’s Mother?” she whispers.

At this, he inhales sharply, and his Sharingan blazes to the surface. Nirami thinks that if he weren’t holding the baby, there would be lightning crackling through his body.

“Dead,” he says flatly. “Gone.”

The words hit her like a punch to the chest, shocking in its familiarty because she’s only entertained the hope of her mother’s survival for three days. She has grieved her far longer, and yet it feels as if she has lost her all over.

“But you said…” she begins, unable to continue.

“I found her,” Father says, sounding numb. “She was alive. I rescued her.” He looks into the fire, at something that she can’t seem to see. “She died. I could only save the baby.”

“But…but why did she die?” Nirami wants to know, rubbing at her eyes and trying to will her tears not to fall. “Was it having _him_?”

She looks at the infant before her with a hint of resentment and suspicion.

“No,” Father says immediately, and with such firmness that knows that’s the truth. “It was Asura.”

“Asur… _our uncle_?”

She’s heard him mentioned before, late at night when he would speak with Mother.

“No,” Father says now, tone sharp. “Not your uncle. He is no longer my brother, no longer our kin. He is the enemy.” Her father stands now. “His servants stole your mother away and held her against her will all these months. It’s why I couldn’t sense her chakra, it’s why I couldn’t…why we couldn’t…I took her away and she…no…” He swallows here, and pauses, and it almost seems like he is listening to someone or something Nirami can’t see. “No, that’s right. She should never have been in that position. If she had never been taken, she would not be dead now.”

“Father?”

“Asura will pay,” Father says, and the tomoe in his Sharingan spin in emphasis. Nirami is a little afraid of him just then. Once, Mother could calm him when he was like this, but Mother is gone.

Dead.

The responsibility is now hers.

“Asura will pay,” she agrees with her father. “But you have to rest. Go and sleep. I’ll feed the baby and take care of him.”

He doesn’t hear her until she goes to take the baby in her arms; five younger siblings have made her an expert at handling infants.

“You _have_ to rest, Father,” she repeats. “So you can kill Asura and avenge Mother. You won’t do that if you aren’t healthy. So…please…promise not to die, too? We need you, Father.”

Something of her plea must break through, because he suddenly looks up at her, and for the first time since he returned home, she feels like he is actually aware of her presence.

His expression softens a little, the Sharingan disappearing, and he motions for her to come closer. She does, and is shocked when he leans over and rests his forehead against hers.

“Your mother loved you,” he tells her, hesitating on the rarely used word as he gazes deep into her eyes. “You and your brothers and your sisters. And this baby. More than her on life, she loved her children. If I could go back and change…” He clenches his eyes here, pain nakedly evident in his features. He takes a moment to get control of himself and then pulls way. “But I can’t. We must move forward.”

He straightens up and takes off his cloak.

“Tomorrow we’ll begin,” he decides. “There is more to teach, more to do if we’re to destroy Asura and his entire legacy. Even if I die before I manage it, his sins will not go unpunished and his descendants will never live in peace.”

“Alright,” she agrees. “But sleep now. And I’ll have someone bring food for when you wake up.”

“And you’ll protect your brother,” he remind her as he falls heavily onto his sleeping pallet.

“With my life,” Nirami vows.

インドラの子供たち

The baby is weak.

For the first few months, it is a struggle to keep him alive, but everyone rallies around him. The tiny stranger is all they have left of Mother, and everyone is conscious of what it would mean to lose him.

Seasons drift by, merging from spring into summer, and eventually Uchiwa begins to look healthier. He eats and sleeps like normal—probably more than he should, in the latter case, because of how much growing he must do—but eventually the day comes when they know he will survive.

He cries.

_A lot,_ Nirami muses, wondering if it’s possible to go deaf from a screaming baby.

“He’s so noisy,” Rishaba complains, handing him off to Nirami with the irritated look of an eight-year-old who would rather be throwing shuriken than changing diapers. “I don’t know what he has to complain about. He’s fed and dry and everyone’s always fussing over him…”

It’s true; he doesn’t lack for company. Uchiwa has been passed around and held by his father and older siblings since his arrival. He doesn’t even sleep in a basket the way they all did as infants, but usually in someone’s arms.

And yet he cries with the same mournful wail of someone locked in a dark room, all alone.

“I think he misses Mama,” little Ributi says softly, and that makes everyone go quiet. No one can think of a reason why that wouldn’t be true.

Nirami thinks it makes sense. Somehow, Uchiwa is aware that there is someone important missing from their family, even as young as he is.

She tries to soothe him, telling him stories of their mother, but only when Father is out of earshot. Hearing about her upsets him still, and they have once more returned to the unspoken rule of not mentioning her name. Sometimes, it’s Father who will tell stories as the children gather around them. He speaks of their great grandmother, Kaguya, the Rabbit Goddess who was sealed away in the moon by her wicked sons.

“Why’d they do that?” Jayanta asks, worried; his twin, Jayanti, clutches the stuffed rabbit doll that Mother made for her years ago.

“Because she was powerful,” Father says. “She wanted a world that existed with peace, but it required sacrifice. Sacrifice her sons were not strong enough to make.”

This confuses Nirami, but they all know better than to question Father, especially considering how rare it is for him to tell them stories to begin with.

“To obtain a better world, sometimes it is necessary to give up that which you care for the most,” Father continues, and his eyes go distant the way they sometimes do. “It is painful, but it is for the greater good.”

インドラの子供たち

When Uchiwa is weaned and able to walk and talk unaided, Father chooses to leave their island. He says they may one day return, but for now it is time to go back among the people of the world and spread his teachings of ninjutsu.

Nirami and Rishaba, being the oldest and more naturally inclined to ninjutsu than any of Father’s students, are expected to teach alongside him. Rishaba lacks the patience, preferring to show off his skills to the others and receive praises, but Nirami is more patient. When she isn’t showing Father’s acolytes how to improve their techniques, she teaches Uchiwa how to make hand signs and focus his chakra.

Life soon falls into a pattern of travelling and teaching, and once again, as the years pass, Father amasses followers. He is so strong and with such a commanding presence that people naturally fall in line behind him. Nirami knows they sense that he is dangerous and don’t want to be obstacles in his path.

Sometimes teaching ninjutsu happens peacefully—people are eager to learn—and other times they are met with fear and anger. Sometimes there are those who insist ninjutsu is a perversion of the “true path”. When this happens, Father will get a certain look on his face, and the Sharingan will manifest, and Nirami will know that there will be no mercy for them.

These are followers of the ways of Asura, and of Grandfather Hagoromo.

Though the older children are expected to fight alongside their father and his followers whenever there is such an encounter, especially once they enter their teens, the younger ones are left in a safe location with a good vantage point. Father wants them to observe and learn, so that when the time comes for them to join his crusade, they will not falter.

There is no question of leaving any of them behind when he goes on a campaign.

Father says it’s because he intends to teach them better, but Nirami suspects an ulterior motive. She thinks he is afraid that if he leaves them alone, something like what happened to Mother will happen to them.

インドラの子供たち

One day it nearly happens anyhow.

In the midst of a skirmish with a mountain community, everyone is so occupied that they don’t notice an enemy has slipped away and found his way to the little children. Not untul it’s too late. Even with his ability to use _Shushin_ , Father only arrives on the scene to witness the aftermath.

Later that night, the twins relay with excitement and amazement how one of the soldiers suddenly appeared, killing their nurse and then turned to where they were huddling with Midumi. And how, while they froze in terror, four-year-old Uchiwa darted forward and shoved a discarded kunai into the man’s throat.

“He was so _brave_ ,” Jayanti says proudly.

“Yes, but he got so sick right afterward,” Jayanta sniggers. “He threw up everywhere!”

But his chuckles subside when Father fixes him with a quelling look, and then he considers his youngest son.

“You protected your family,” he tells him. “You did well, my son.”

Uchiwa turns red and looks away shyly, hiding his face in Nirami’s skirts, but she gently coaxes him to face their father.

“You have an inherent talent…much like your mother,” Father goes on. “Tomorrow you will begin training with your brothers and sisters.”

“But he’s so young!” Nirami protests. “None of us started until we were six, at least.”

But Father shakes his head. “He has demonstrated his capabilities. It is best to capitalise on this.”

As usual, there is no point to arguing.

Still, Nirami’s reservations aren’t quelled; in fact, later that night, they only grow when Uchiwa tearfully asks, “Why did that man try to hurt us, Big Sister? We didn’t do anything to him.”

“Because he was an enemy of Father,” she tells him, rubbing comfortable circles along his back, the way Mother always used to do for her. “He knew if he hurt you, it would hurt Father.”

“Why does he want to hurt Father? And why must we always fight?”

“You know why. We’re trying to bring Father’s ninjutsu to the world. And sometimes people don’t want to accept different ways of thinking, even if it’s good for them.”

“It doesn’t feel very good,” he sighs as he drifts off to sleep, and Nirami’s heart breaks for her little brother who is still so young and soft. There’s an innocence to him that neither she nor their other siblings ever had, the same kindness that Mother had which she desperately wants to keep from being tarnished.

Even though she knows that is impossible.

インドラの子供たち

Uchiwa divides his time between studying amongst Father’s other disciples, and following his siblings around to learn from them. He is talented, and word of this spreads among the amazed acolytes. Most of them are impressed and a little fearful of this child, and even Nirami and the other children can’t help their own wariness. It’s a little unsettling sometimes how quickly Uchiwa learns; in a matter of months he is able to best them all in taijutsu.

Rishaba is consistently irritated by this, and it’s even worse when Father praises him for it.

“He doesn’t value you any less,” Nirami points out to her younger brother, who glares as Father leads Uchiwa down to the seashore. It’s the same outing he made with all of them when they came of age, teaching them to breathe flame like Mother could.

It took Nirami over a year to learn how to do it properly, even though she had Mother by her side helping her. Even now, she can only use it in close-combat situations as a means of distraction. Rishaba is better—he can sometimes make shapes from the flame, like Mother.

Uchiwa masters the technique on his first try, darkening the rocks of the shore with a giant, roaring flame while his siblings watch in awe.

The girls and Jayanta cheer and hurry down to congratulate him, while Father lays his hand on Uchiwa’s head in a rare show of affection. She can’t see from this distance, but Nirami suspects he might be smiling at him.

Rishaba grumbles and stalks away, kicking up clouds of earth as he goes.

インドラの子供たち

Rishaba’s resentment only grows over time.

Father’s pride in Uchiwa is a personal affront to him, and takes pleasure in besting his youngest brother in ninjutsu and genjutsu whenever possible, in increasingly more humiliating ways. Uchiwa takes it without complaint, eager to learn from his older brother, but Nirami recognises it as the abuse that it is.

“You shame yourself,” she tells Rishaba one day as their youngest brother limps off, covered in mud and bruises.

“Don’t speak of things you don’t understand,” he retorts, shouldering her aside.

“There’s no reason for this resentment. He’s your brother and he looks up to you. And you ought to be proud of him for doing so well.”

“There’s no reason for you to act like you’re our mother, and yet you do it,” he sneers in reply. “At least he’ll learn something from me. All your coddling will do is make him more spoiled.”

“Don’t try to put this on me,” she retorts. “It’s jealousy, plain and simple. You never had to worry about competition with Jayanta because he isn’t very talented. But Uchiwa is, and it worries you. It shouldn’t. You’re the eldest son, Father will keep that in mind.”

“Haven’t you realised yet, Nira?” her brother replies coldly. “Father’s plans will never involve us. We’re nothing but pawns to him. Except Uchiwa. Perhaps he’s a lance.”

He stalks away, leaving Nirami concerned.

“It’s because I don’t look like the rest of you,” Uchiwa murmurs one evening several days later, as Nirami digs splinters out of his skin; Rishaba used a rather nasty _Mokuton_ technique with projectiles that day. “That’s why he hates me so much.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Nirami insists, though she isn’t quite sure. “It’s just a difficult thing to accept, when a younger sibling learns things faster. Even I sometimes feel a little intimidated by you, Little Brother.” His eyes widen in surprise and potential hurt. “But you know what the difference is?”

“What?”

“ _I_ am not a silly young boy,” she teases, reaching over to tickle him in the sides.

He makes a face and twists out of her way, an unusual reaction in him. Usually he collapses into giggles.

“But I still look different,” Uchiwa insists, clearly not willing to let go of that particular sticking point.

Nirami sighs.

He has always been very aware of his dissimilarity to his brothers and sisters.

They all resemble their mother, with her inky black hair and tanned skin, her grey eyes and strong nose. He is very much the reverse, with his father’s lighter features and pale skin. Where his siblings inherited their father’s angular face shape, he has Mother’s delicate bone structure.

“That’s just that the gods decreed you would look like,” Nirami tells him. “You’re no different from us. I bet if Mother and Father had had more children, there would have been more that looked like you.”

But this doesn’t make him feel better.

“I wish Mother hadn’t died,” Uchiwa sighs. “Then I could have a little brother or sister. I hate being the youngest.”

“Mm. But one day, all of us will be married and we’ll have children and you can care for them,” she suggests. “And of course, you’ll have your own one day.”

“It’s not the same,” he sighs gloomily, and he won’t be cheered even when she offers to draw pictures with him. It’s a pastime they have always shared. Eventually she brings out her secret supply of honey drops. Father says they shouldn’t have candies, but Uchiwa inherited Mother’s sweet tooth, and so Nirami always tries to have some on her for emergencies.

He frowns at her for a moment, cheeks puffed out in indignation at the idea of being pacified with candy, but he eventually gives in.

Sweets are too rare a commodity for him to refuse them. 

“Ah-ah-ah,” she wags her finger before relinquishing the candy. “This is only if you cheer up. Smile, please.”

“Big Sister…” he groans.

“Candy is only for boys who aren’t gloomy and brooding,” she reminds him. “There’s nothing for free.”

He sighs, and offers her a smile. It’s feeble and false.

“Now you just look like you sat on a pinecone, or the way Master Ebi looks when Father told him he needed to work on his _Henge_ technique.”

Uchiwa chuckles a little at this, and Nirami feels a small sense of victory.

“There we are,” she says and gives him the candy. “Don’t be so serious. Rishaba will wisen up. In the meantime, you know Father is proud of you. As are the rest of us.”

“You too?”

“Especially me.”

インドラの子供たち

Uchiwa continues to try to prove himself to his older brother, following him around and observing him from a distance, or directly asking him to show him new techniques. Mindful of the watchful eye of their father, Rishaba does as he’s bid, but it’s clear he isn’t happy about it.

He continues to heap abuse on their younger brother, increasing the brutality of his training methods in proportion to how frustrated he becomes. It soon gets to the point that Nirami fears he might one day kill Uchiwa. Yet, just when her heart is about to give out in fright, he will always pull back.

She lives in fear of what will happen the day he doesn’t.

It becomes even worse the day after Uchiwa saves Rishaba’s life in battle. The oldest son of Indra seems to feel a deep shame at having been bested by his much younger brother, especially when his siblings clamour around him in pride later.

“You have to do something,” Nirami tells Father one night when Rishaba nearly suffocates Uchiwa with a wave of mud. “If you don’t step in, he could be seriously injured! They both could!”

But Father’s expression becomes hard.

“A parent should not have favourites,” he says firmly. “Let them resolve it as men.”

“Uchiwa is eight!” she protests. “And Rishaba almost sixteen! Neither of them are exactly men, but Uchiwa is so much littler!” When he raises an eyebrow at her, she realises she has raised her voice to him, and quickly goes quiet again. “If Uchiwa…if something happens to him, we’ll lose…”

_We’ll lose the last bit of Mother that we have._

“Nothing will happen to him,” Father tells her, returning his attention to one of his old scrolls. “Your mother ensured it.”

“What?” Nirami gasps, confused.

“She foresaw it, before she died,” he replies, absent, gazing off into the distance like he sometimes does. “He will be my greatest legacy, the mightiest of our offspring, the one who will inherit my strength and my resolve.” Father’s eyes take on an almost manic gleam then. “He will fan the flames of my will and beget a powerful clan—and unbroken line that will gain more power with every generation.”

Nirami is too stunned to argue, and by the time she can find her words, Father has shooed her from his presence.

インドラの子供たち

Somehow, though, he is right.

As Uchiwa begins to realise that Rishaba will only acknowledge him as a rival, instead of loving him and caring for him like a brother, he begins to go out of his way to his make his life a constant trial.

Every day is a battle between the two, while their other siblings look on in awe.

And worry, in Nirami’s case.

It is only on the battlefield, where they face the enemies of father’s teachings, that they are ever a united front. And _that_ is a sight to be seen. Even Father, who spends more time directing from behind the front lines than in battle, watches their movements with eyes that are shining and alive for the first time since Mother’s death.

It’s a brief happiness, however.

One dark day, while they defend themselves from one of Asura’s followers, an enemy traps Uchiwa in a prison of earth and darts forward, throwing a spear at his unprotected heart.

No one seems close enough to deflect the blow, or free him—Father is far out of range, no doubt seeking Asura or the next-most-powerful follower of his teachings. Everything seems to happen within slow motion.

And Rishaba is between his brother and the blade, and the sickening sound of broken bone and crushed internal organs seems to echo.

Uchiwa gasps in wordless horror and dismay, while Rishaba smirks. It’s unclear who the expression is meant for.

“This time I’m saving you, Little Brother,” he says, blood spilling over his lips. “Try…living up to me…now…”

“Ri…Rishaba…”

“Won’t…Father…be…proud?” he chuckles, before the life leaves his face.

Rishaba’s body hits the ground, his eyes open and staring.

It is as if the entire world has just frozen. All across the battlefield, Nirami and her siblings try to understand what just happened. As their enemies try to take advantage of their shock, reality comes crushing back.

Nirami screams in rage, struggling against the man who has grabbed her from behind, and willing her chakra through her body and into her very bones. Pain slices through her as she forces them to grow and replicate, piercing through her muscles and skin to skewer her attacker. It’s a technique she has been working on in secret, something she wanted to show her family, but now…

She snarls, snaps off a sword-length protrusion from her arm and tosses it to where Uchiwa remains imprisoned; in the air, it explodes into projectiles that slam through the earthen barrier, breaking it.

Her youngest brother seems paralysed at first, eyes wide and teary, but then he emits a bellow like a wounded animal.

Suddenly he moves, but it’s too fast for any of them to see. It’s almost like a human bolt of lightning— _like Father!_ —slicing his way through the entire contingent around them until they lie in bloody heaps and he stands before their brother’s killer.

The man—a boy, really, barely older than Rishaba—is paralysed by the tiny, heaving form of Uchiwa, too stunned to even draw his sword. He can’t move before fine, sharp wire wraps around him from head to toe, and with a yell of rage and a flare of his chakra, Uchiwa pulls it taught, slicing him to ribbons.

The battlefield is quiet now, permeated by an astonished silence.

Uchiwa stands over the remains of his victim, panting and drenched in blood. His eyes are alight with grief, and Nirami can see them now because they are no longer the warm black she always knew. They are like Father’s now, only instead of a six pointed star, three black tear-drop shapes surround his pupil.

Someone else screams, and another enemy appears.

A boy, who looks like Uchiwa’s mirror image, except with shorter, lighter hair and wide grey-blue eyes.

“You killed my brother, you bastard!” he screams, the air in his palm twisting and churning in a ball.

“He killed mine,” Uchiwa replies tonelessly.

The other boy shoves it at Uchiwa, and to Nirami’s shock, her prodigious brother is unable to dodge. It throws him several yards away, and he only manages to stay upright by feeding chakra to his feet.

The air is charged, the fighting ready to begin anew, but then the other boy is surrounded by others. Men and women in white robes, ushering him away, eyeing Uchiwa with fear. All of Nirami and her siblings opponents vanish, appearing beside him.

“Who are you?” Uchiwa asks, eyes narrowing at the wind-user, sizing him up.

“I am Senji! Son of Asura!” he yells, still struggling against his people. “And I won’t forget what you’ve done!”

“Neither will we,” Uchiwa replies, turning his back on the other boy. “Go home and bury your dead…if you can find them. We will do the same.”

Midumi and Ributi lift Rishaba’s body up, their shoulders shaking with grief, while Nirami watches from afar.

_How did this happen?_

インドラの子供たち

In the immediate aftermath, an aura of grieving fills their lives.

They return to their island refuge for a brief time to scatter Rishaba’s ashes. Father’s face looks the same way that Nirami remembers it did when Mother died. And yet, he is as resolved in his mission as ever.

“Asura’s fault,” he growls to himself. “If he never took her, the boy would not have been born. He never would have had a son. He took her and used her to ensure that barren shrew of his could give birth…could bring a murderer into this world.”

None of this makes sense to anyone, but it’s clear that the loss of his child has hit him hard.

Father becomes even more distant after that, locking himself away in private for long hours, pouring over scrolls and old texts and a strange stone tablet that she can’t read.

She never sees Uchiwa smile again after that day.

インドラの子供たち

It’s not the last death in the family.

One by one, Nirami watches her brothers and sister struck down in battle and blood. Each death chips away a little more of the survivors. Soon, the kindness and mercy and sadness she once felt at having to fight and kill people morphs into a simmering rage that demands blood be paid for what has been taken from them.

She considers it her duty to keep her father surrounded by family, to make up for those that are lost. He cannot be alone, she won’t allow it, and so she marries one of her father’s acolytes. He is young, with a shock of white hair and bright green eyes, and doesn’t possess much in the way of wisdom. But what he lacks, he makes up for with fanatic devotion to her father.

Seeing her as an extension of Indra, he cedes to her every wish and decision.

It’s not a love match—nothing as powerful as the connection that existed between her parents—but she finds satisfaction in the match.

When she gives birth to her first child, she calls him Kaguyo.

She expects Father to be pleased, to be happy to see the legacy continue not only through Uchiwa, but through her, but he remains distant. Longer and longer he spends on his own, reawakening from his feverish, obsessive studies only when Uchiwa visits.

インドラの子供たち

Then comes the day when he begins to cough blood. A week later, a stroke paralyses his entire left side, leaving him bedridden.

Healers are fetched, from far and wide and sometimes at the end of a sword, until he turns them out.

“Stop wasting time and return to your training,” he slurs through the part of his mouth that can still move. “The end is coming. I will face it without intervention, for I do not fear it.”

After that, the reality sets in: Father is going to die.

Within a month, the delirious ramblings begin. He speaks of a shadow, often; sometimes he rails against invisible people meant to represent his father and brother. Sometimes, he speaks quietly to Mother, saying things that he would never say out loud, and which make Nirami blush.

Sometimes he begins to apologise, for what, she doesn’t know, but before he can reveal what it is, he’ll return to his senses.

On one such night, when he is lucid, she asks if he is in pain.

Father looks at her clearly, for the first time that she can remember. Perhaps he is too exhausted to hold onto whatever has driven him for so long.

“No,” he tells her. “Not pain. It is almost over.” He sighs, then coughs, a light spatter of blood slipping over his lips. She is quick to wipe it away. “Our legacy is strong. It is protected, I see it…” His eyes close for a spell, and she wonders if he will sleep now. But then he opens them again and stares right at her. “You have been a good daughter. The strongest of my children.”

“Except Uchiwa,” she says.

He considers, and then says, “In some ways, no. In some ways, yes. There is…so much of your mother in you.”

Nirami’s eyes widen, because she has never thought so.

“All these years…” Father trails off, thinking on something. But rather than finish the thought, he sighs. “I need you to do something.”

“Father?”

“Send Uchiwa to me. And then leave us. I need to be alone with him when I pass.”

“What?”

“It’s the only way to ensure he remains strong,” Indra tells her.

“Please don’t make him watch you die,” she whispers.

Father closes his eyes slowly, a frown that shows he is not pleased with her questioning him. “It’s the only way. And the last thing I will ever ask of you.”

And when put like that, she knows she can’t refuse. “I…yes, Father.”

He sighs again, closing his eyes.

“I have such strange dreams,” he murmurs to himself. “A fox…a woman in white…cherry blossoms…her hair is like…”

“Is it Mother?”

“I don’t know.”

This confuses her, because hoe can he not know?

“Go now,” he tells her. “Fetch your brother.”

“But—”

“The time is short. Do your duty, daughter. As always.”

She knows this dismissal well, and nods stiffly.

Nirami leaves Father’s chambers behind, and as she passes Uchiwa, standing among Father’s disciples, all of whom are already sitting in mourning, she says quietly, “You can go in now. He wants you to sit with him until…”

Her brother’s yes widen, and he nods, then asks, “And you?”

“We’ve said our goodebyes,” she cuts him off, tone strained. “He…doesn’t want me there with him.”

“But we should both—”

“He was very clear,” she whispers. “You’re the one who will inherit his legacy. I…I am sure he will want to impart some last, secret knowledge to you.”

In her own grief, she can’t quite help the bitterness in her voice, or the dark thought that Rishaba was right. No matter what, it was always about Uchiwa.

Still, when she returns to her own home, she begins to weep, all the strength and anger and pain sapping out of her. Her husband makes himself scarce—he has neither the inclination or the capacity to comfort her, and honestly she wouldn’t want him to.

But when little Kaguyo comes to her, dragging his stuffed rabbit doll, she pulls him to her chest and holds him close.

インドラの子供たち

Uchiwa emerges from the chamer in the morning, his shoulders slumped and his fists clenched; beyond him, Nirami sees her father’s still form, draped in a white sheet.

She reaches out to place a hand on her brother’s shoulder, and he flinches. When he meets her gaze, tears stream from the bloodred Sharingan—a Sharingan whose pupil is no longer ringed with tiny black tomoe, but a solid black wheel, like a shuriken.

Their father’s death has allowed him to unlock the full potential of his visual prowess.

They’ve always scattered the ashes of their dead beyond the environs of their island refuge, but Uchiwa says there is another place they must go to lay Father to rest. That night, he and Nirami slip away from their mourning community, following the directives that their father gave Uchiwa in his final moments.

Uchiwa carries the body, wrapped in soft, clean linens, until they come to a tiny forest shrine on the other side of the island.

It’s feeble with age, and charred in some places as if it survived a fire, but barely. Exchanging uncertain glances, they step inside, taking note of a small, plain alter at the other end of the room. On it there is a small urn, filled with lotus flowers and lavender; they are dried and dead with age. In her estimate, they’ve been there for perhaps a year, which means someone has been here besides them. Beside the urn, something tiny and golden glints in the dim light.

“A kanzashi?” Uchiwa asks quietly.

Tears fill Nirami’s eyes as she stares at the tiny ornament. “Mother’s.”

“That’s why he wanted to be brought here,” Uchiwa says. “This is where he...” He swallows. “He must have come here to mourn her.”

“Why didn’t he tell us this was here?” she asks, clenching her fists angrily.

“To keep us focussed. Emotions have no place in our mission,” her brother says quietly, in a such a tone that resembles Father that she has to look twice at him. Slowly, he brings Father’s body to the altar and sets it beneath it.

Moving as if in a dream, she moves forward as well, reaching out to brush her fingers along the ornament she mother used to love. It’s sharp to a point it might be used as a weapon, but Mother would never have used it.

She clutches it to her, before stepping back to stand with Uchiwa at the entrance of the shrine. Then his Sharingan activates, the wheel in his eye spinning, and a black flame consumes their father’s body.

They watch it burn for, not moving until the flames start to move to the structure, and then they watch the flames devour that as well. No one can ever know of this place, of their parents’ final resting place, lest they choose to desecrate it.

“Will you stay?” she asks after a beat.

“No. I have to do Father’s work,” Uchiwa replies. “And Senju and his ilk must be destroyed.”

She nods; she thought as much.

“I will stay here,” she tells him, and then offers him a sad smile. “It was never my legacy he was concerned with, or any of our brothers and sisters. You’re it.” She shivers. “In a way, I’m relieved it was not me. What Father wants…what he _wanted_ you to do…sometimes I believe it’s more a curse than a gift.”

“It is a curse,” Uchiwa says. “But if it’s the sacrifice I must make for a better world, I’ll carry it proudly.”

She shakes her head at this, struck then by an image in her mind of the tiny, gasping infant that Father brought to them that horrible and beautiful day so many years ago. And she knows, in that instant, that when they part today, she will never see him again.

Nirami hands him the kanzashi. “Take it. This should belong to your wife. When you meet her.”

Uchiwa blinks at her, perplexed. “As if I have time for such a thing.”

“That’s part of the legacy,” she reminds him. “You have to carry it on…you have to pass on Father’s will. One day, one of your descendants will complete our goals. And since you’re leaving me behind…you’ll need a remind of our family to stay with yours. And something of Mother.”

Uchiwa’s expression flickers then, his carefully crafted mask of emotionless wavering, and then his mouth twitches. It’s not quite a smile, but his eyes are suspiciously bright. Then he reaches out and affectionately taps her forehead.

“Don’t worry, Big Sister,” he tells her genuinely. “Me and mine will change the world.”

終わり


End file.
